Campaign Finance Reform Faltering

Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the House of Representatives are neighbors on the second floor of the state Capitol. The distance from her door to theirs is 29 steps over polished marble.

But on the issue of campaign finance reform, ostensibly a shared legislative priority for Rell and lawmakers, the distance has been as forbidding as Death Valley.

The Republican governor and Democrat-controlled legislature have yet to directly negotiate over their competing views on what they proclaimed months ago to be a top priority.

Only on Friday, the day after some House Democrats held a press conference begging the governor to take a meeting, did Rell direct her senior staff to begin talks.

It may be too late. The session ends June 8.

Rell and lawmakers already are blaming each other. The governor wonders why Democrats have taken so long to respond to her reform proposal, which was delivered in January. Democrats say Rell is intransigent.

Reform advocates are struggling to understand what happened to the appetite for change since scandal forced Gov. John G. Rowland from office last summer.

``I'm not sure how we went from being on everyone's list of priorities to where we are now,'' said Andy Sauer, the executive director of Common Cause. ``It's been a precipitous drop.''

Rell and legislators say they still stand foursquare behind reform. They just cannot agree on what it means.

``The devil is in the details,'' said Jeffrey B. Garfield, the executive director and general counsel of the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

To many Democratic legislators, reform means overhauling the rules for campaigning for governor, an office their party last won in 1986. They have proposed a voluntary system of public financing that would cap spending on races for governor and other statewide constitutional offices.

They propose less radical reforms for themselves.

Rell would ban lobbyists and state contractors from contributing money for any state office, including the legislature, where Democrats hold nearly two-thirds of the 187 seats.

The governor would restrict political action committees and close a lucrative loophole: the sale of space in campaign ad books to businesses, which are otherwise forbidden from contributing.

A recent study by the elections commission found that ad books generate one-fifth of legislative incumbents' direct contributions.

Their total value is even higher. Legislative leaders also use the ad books to raise money for political action committees, which can make unlimited contributions to lawmakers.

Precise details of the Democrats' reform plan, or plans, are unavailable. House and Senate Democrats have yet to agree on a bill, though they say their versions are closer to each other's than to Rell's.

House Democrats last Monday released a summary of their plan, which they described as a compromise acceptable to the Senate. Rep. Christopher L. Caruso, D-Bridgeport, a committee chairman in charge of the reform effort, announced the Senate would vote on the bill that Wednesday.

Senators denied a compromise. Wednesday came and went without action.

House Democrats say their plan would create one of the nation's few systems of publicly financing campaigns for governor and other statewide constitutional offices, beginning with the 2010 elections.

Gubernatorial candidates who raised $250,000 through small donations -- 90 percent of which came from Connecticut residents who were not lobbyists or state contractors -- would be eligible for $1.25 million in public money for a primary campaign and $3 million for a general campaign.

But Rell immediately seized on their failure to eliminate important sources of special-interest money to lawmakers: the ad books and contributions from state contractors and lobbyists.

``Have they since January put anything on the table that is a total ban on anything? That doesn't exclude themselves? No. If they've got the will to do that, I'll talk to them'' about public financing, she said. ``But so far, since January until now, what they have done is put something on the table that is simply a hoax.''

Some Republicans suspected that Democrats were preparing to place an unpalatable bill on Rell's desk, forcing a woman who wants to be seen as the reform governor to veto reform.

Democrats harbored similar suspicions, suggesting Rell's harsh words were justification for eventually vetoing a public financing bill, if one ever reached her desk.

``I get a sense that's what they are trying to do to us,'' said Rep. Tim O'Brien, D-New Britain, a sponsor of the Democratic plan. ``She doesn't get campaign finance reform, which she doesn't want. And we get blamed.''

By midweek, Republicans dropped their suspicions, concluding that accusing the Democrats of having any plan was unfair.

``I don't think they have an end game,'' said House Minority Leader Robert M. Ward, R-North Branford. ``They are deeply divided.''